childhood enemies

My Tutor Is My Childhood Enemy

Seven years ago, June Marlowe froze on live television. Theo Ashby laughed. At least, that is what June remembers. The humiliating clip turned her worst moment into a town joke, destroyed the friendship she once had with Theo, and made mathematics something she could barely face without remembering that stage. Now seventeen, June has built a new life around art. She has even earned a conditional place at the Calloway Institute of Art and Design in New York. There is just one problem. She needs a B or better in AP Calculus to keep it. And she is failing. Then her mother announces that she has hired the best student tutor in Port Calder. Theo Ashby. The boy June has hated for seven years. Their tutoring sessions begin with insults, rules written on graph paper, and a contract designed to keep everything painfully simple. No talking about Brain Bowl. No touching her sketchbook. Sessions are strictly math. And absolutely no feelings. But the more time June spends across the kitchen table from Theo, the harder it becomes to fit him into the villain she remembers. He notices when she is about to panic. He teaches her mathematics through animation instead of making her feel stupid. He protects her when no one is supposed to notice. And every honest answer between them creates another crack in the story June has believed since she was ten. Because Theo has secrets. He volunteered to become her tutor. He has spent years carrying the truth about what really happened on that television stage. And the anonymous reader who has faithfully supported June's secret webcomic for three years may be much closer to her than she ever imagined. As old footage resurfaces, buried family guilt comes to light, and someone begins manipulating their past for personal gain, June must decide whether she is brave enough to confront the moment that changed her life. Not only to save her future. But to discover whether the boy she spent seven years hating was ever really her enemy at all.